RubixsQube

So, the big Halloween party I'm going to is tonight, and I'm putting the finishing touches on my costume:

Yawn. What a boring, boring result to this world series.

Here's probably a weird moment for Mario, to be sure

First, I think that all of this discussion has been really great! I think that it makes sense to me to think about some art as being created as a working, intricate whole, and "spoiling" certainly can undercut the artistic intention, even on a small part. In my experience, I find that I appreciate and seek pieces of media and art that requires a lot of thought and craft, and I feel that you can overcome spoilers. Case in point: I watched The Shining only recently, because I am a dope and avoid cinematic horror experiences. I also have had references to the film thrown at me from every corner of culture, and I had a different experience from you SuperBiased. There was no way a lifetime of sly winks and Simpsons episodes could have made a dent in what is truly a cinematic masterpiece. I think that spoilers too often reveal plot elements, or light style pastiche. Kubrick's film rises above that, it is so, so much more than a straightforward series of events, and when I saw it all put together, it was magical. It's all my own experience, I suppose. I'm just a person who believes (like I think many of you who responded) that when you build something well, you can have people describe every part of it, and it's still well, well worth seeing and experiencing on your own. I do appreciate that people are conscientious of indicating when they are "spoiling" elements of a piece of art, but I am also someone who thinks that today's pop culture environment values plot too highly. That's maybe a conversation for another time.

But, to be honest, how important is the "discovery" aspect, when you look at the sum total of a piece of art? I know that this is not a popular opinion I have, but I think that we live in a world where we're very, very worried about "spoiling" everything, and I don't really get it. There are certain genres (mystery, but science fiction short story as well), where the whole point is to like, build and eventually reveal, and I can see how "spoiling" the ending of a Sherlock Holmes mystery would lessen the impact of the whole thing. But for (I think) the majority of pieces of art where people these days are worried about being "spoiled," it may be that the art is lacking. AGAIN, I know that this is controversial, and I really would love to hear a defense of the spoiler.

Also, Cloud Atlas can't be spoiled, because it's a pretty incredible work of complex fiction. I think that I've determined that if a piece of long-form art can be "spoiled" by a reveal of some detail, it's probably not really all that great to begin with. For instance, Citizen Kane is fucking fantastic, even if you know the "TWIST AT THE END."

I'm just excited for an 8 person version of this: stick with it.

Yeah, this is super fantastic, and it's pretty sad to see how Poe's Law just runs rampant regarding this sort of thing.

fuck

EDIT: HEY EVERYONE, JUST WATCH THE VIDEO TEGAN POSTED ABOVE.

Jesse Singal wrote a pretty standard takedown of gamergate for The Boston Globe, and got called out on it, with many people saying "POORLY RESEARCHED, GO TO KOTAKU IN ACTION TO SEE THE TRUE GAMER GATE" So he did. And then he wrote a comment there about it. And it's great.

Valaremos, Senhor Worf.

I am pretty sure that George Lucas didn't plan on the Empire Strikes Back twist until after A New Hope came out. I think George Lucas is just terrible at naming things. If people haven't read the SUPER FASCINATING J.W. Rinzler Making of Star Wars book, please find a copy and read it. It shows that while George Lucas is a hack in many ways, he's also very good at some things, especially when he's up against the wall. I have a lot of respect for the younger version of Lucas, trying his hardest to get his weird dream off the ground, fumbling with a horribly written script, showing rough cuts around to his friends, like, you know, Steve Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. It's a beautiful book, and it features one of my favorite anecdotes about A New Hope ever: During the last days of mixing the sound for the wide release of the film, George and his wife were sitting in a hamburger restaurant in Hollywood, eating quickly before heading back into the editing bay to keep working. Outside, he can see a huge crowd gathered at Grauman's Chinese theatre, and he says something like: "oh man, it'd be so great if Star Wars got that kind of reaction." After eating, they go out to see which film was playing at Grauman's and it was a limited release of Star Wars, which had opened there that day, instead of William Friedkin's Sorceror. He just hadn't realized that a version was already playing and building buzz around town. I love the idea of young George Lucas a lot.

I'd love to play, and I vote for no custom characters, but sure, Miis. I also tend to vote no items, but I'm a dork who thinks that the item frequency is way, way too high. I don't need final destination. I'm also actually fine with anything, considering I'll probably not do too great.

This is hard to read! It's hard to read someone's insecurity, made manifest!

About halfway down this page, there is a discussion of what issues a future Trek series could tackle. As a giant Star Trek fan who finds the recent reboot / alternate universe films to be tedious action films, I've thought a lot about this very question. I think that while DS9 kind of hinted at this through its run, we've never seen what would happen if the Federation were to fail. I'd love to see a future where the Federation was not the glowing ideal throughout the galaxy. I'd also love to see a little bit more acceptance throughout the show (it's been great that character ethnicity / diversity has been championed throughout the series, yes), like, it's nice to have episodes that kind of dance around homosexuality, but damn if it wouldn't be awesome to have a queer captain. Maybe both the captain and the first officers are women. I know that there is this fear that Gene Roddenberry's ghost will haunt you if you twiddle with the specifics of his Federation, but damn if I wouldn't be happy to see a series that just shook everything up, without being a stupid reboot. What does a post-Federation galaxy look like? Who steps into power? The Romulans? Gah, I want more Star Trek every damn day.

So, Bayonetta 2 reviews dropped today, and overall, they're exceedingly positive. I remember being at E3 when the first one was about to come out, and being mega disappointed by the woman they had walking around in full Bayonetta outfit, since the weird oversexualization of that game was pretty offensive. I never played the original, and even though this game is apparently a very good action game, it kind of pumps up the juvenile humor, too. I'm really glad that polygon's review score reflects the fact that this is unnecessary, and offensive. Perhaps I'd need to play the game to see that this is done ironically, or done to make a point, but I have a feeling it's done in that kind of strange way that these things are done in some games. And that's sad to me. Good job polygon for sticking to your guns. I know that they're likely to get some flak for it, but I think it's a very good move. Edit: I mostly want to hear a perspective like the one given by Leigh Alexander, here. Is Bayonetta 2 a game which, on the surface, is exploitative, but actually has things to say?

Regarding Alien: Isolation and wanting to just walk around the Sevastopol, I have been watching some gameplay videos from the game, and it looks both like a game that I really wish I could play, but also that I have zero interest in actually playing. I'm the type of person who doesn't have time for any 10+ hour video games, especially ones where you constantly have to replay sequences, and I'm not the biggest fan of survival / horror / stealth in games. However, I think the game looks absolutely gorgeous. I always wish, with games like this that there was a stupendously easy mode, where the game became something of a kind of interactive film, letting you wander around, but then kind of taking over for the more tense situations. Our current internet culture really looks down on people who play games on easy modes, but I just think it's disappointing that Creative Assembly spent so much time and effort creating this world that I would love to explore, except they gated it by making it insanely frustrating to actually see.

I know that this is mega dumb, but I took this screen capture last night. I really like the idea of Samus trying to get her Metroid pal to eat healthy.

, had the platform names: Before that, they had only announced that they were doing two games, one for the 3DS and one for the WiiU.

(It is, in fact, on Art of the Title, and even more amazing, one of the animators is goddamn Andrew Stanton, from WALL·E) I recently re-watched Honey, I Shrunk the Kids while one of my observing nights was weathered out a few months ago. As I watched the film I realized that I had it entirely memorized from my childhood. Have a ball, baby.

I went in when I got it and turned off "tilt up to jump" and then swapped R and L, but I've since gone back and swapped R and L back to their default, with R as shield, and L as grab. I had thought that I wanted to put R as grab since that's what it was with a Gamecube controller, but it didn't feel right. Otherwise, I'm happy with the default controls. Also, I kind of like the heavy character outlines.

argh I am going to marry Duck Hunt Dog

I saw Gone Girl yesterday. It was like David Fincher dared himself to make a really expertly-crafted Lifetime Original Movie. The more I've thought about it today, the more I've soured on it.